After three years of having chickens I had my first broody hen this spring. I know a lot of people try to avoid broody hens but I have not allowed myself to have an incubator (because I know I would be hatching eggs ALL the time) so I saw this as an opportunity to finally hatch some chicks. I had also been looking at Olandsk Dwarf chickens for a little while now and decided to go for it.
I picked up some eggs from a semi-local farm, 5 Olandsk Dwarf and 1 Serama, and stuck them under my broody hen. I was hoping to leave them in the main coop so that the tiny chickens might be able to live with the bigger ones. Turns out this was a horrible idea and within a day one of the OD eggs was broken because all the hens wanted to help sit on them. So I rearranged the pen holding my production pullets so that the girls were blocked off into the run with a dog kennel for a makeshift coop and broody hen got the coop portion of the production girls set up.
Things were going well. She was taking excellent care of those 5 remaining eggs. When I couldn't stand it any longer I went out and candled the eggs. 4 were definitely developing nicely but 1 didn't seem to be doing anything. I gave it a few more days to be sure then sadly tossed the undeveloped egg.
Finally, after much anticipation the four little chicks hatched. Having only had large fowl before I could not believe how tiny these little guys were!
She was being a very good mommy but there chicks kept insisting on leaving the nest box. I had to go away for a weekend and got an unexpected phone call from DH. After ominously starting the conversation with "I have good chicken news and bad chicken news" I asked "who died?" because that is the only bad chicken news that gets you an unexpected phone call. Unfortunately 2 of the tiny chicks had gotten out of the coop. Most likely through the divider to production girls, then out through their run which is chicken wire instead of hardware cloth. He was only able to find 1 of the chicks but it was ok. The good chicken news was that one of the productions girls started laying at only 15 weeks old.
Down the 3 chicks from 6 eggs I decided it was time to thank broody hen for her hard work and take over chick raising for her. I felt terrible the first few days while the chicks made a disproportionate amount of noise calling for their mom, but I made them a "new mom" out of feathers I had collected. I hung it from the side of the brooder with wire and they quickly ran under "new mom" and quieted.
I picked up some eggs from a semi-local farm, 5 Olandsk Dwarf and 1 Serama, and stuck them under my broody hen. I was hoping to leave them in the main coop so that the tiny chickens might be able to live with the bigger ones. Turns out this was a horrible idea and within a day one of the OD eggs was broken because all the hens wanted to help sit on them. So I rearranged the pen holding my production pullets so that the girls were blocked off into the run with a dog kennel for a makeshift coop and broody hen got the coop portion of the production girls set up.
Things were going well. She was taking excellent care of those 5 remaining eggs. When I couldn't stand it any longer I went out and candled the eggs. 4 were definitely developing nicely but 1 didn't seem to be doing anything. I gave it a few more days to be sure then sadly tossed the undeveloped egg.
Finally, after much anticipation the four little chicks hatched. Having only had large fowl before I could not believe how tiny these little guys were!
She was being a very good mommy but there chicks kept insisting on leaving the nest box. I had to go away for a weekend and got an unexpected phone call from DH. After ominously starting the conversation with "I have good chicken news and bad chicken news" I asked "who died?" because that is the only bad chicken news that gets you an unexpected phone call. Unfortunately 2 of the tiny chicks had gotten out of the coop. Most likely through the divider to production girls, then out through their run which is chicken wire instead of hardware cloth. He was only able to find 1 of the chicks but it was ok. The good chicken news was that one of the productions girls started laying at only 15 weeks old.
Down the 3 chicks from 6 eggs I decided it was time to thank broody hen for her hard work and take over chick raising for her. I felt terrible the first few days while the chicks made a disproportionate amount of noise calling for their mom, but I made them a "new mom" out of feathers I had collected. I hung it from the side of the brooder with wire and they quickly ran under "new mom" and quieted.
